As we look retrospectively at the crisis in Ukraine, one thing becomes crystal clear: the Cold War never ended, at least not for the U.S. national-security establishment. After what most everyone believed was the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon and the CIA immediately went on the offensive by using NATO, an old Cold War dinosaur that should have gone out of existence, to absorb former Warsaw Pact countries, which enabled U.S. officials to station their nuclear missiles, military bases, weaponry, and tanks ever closer to Russia’s border.
Once the Pentagon and the CIA threatened to have NATO absorb Ukraine, there is no doubt that they knew that their threat would induce Russia to invade Ukraine and kill thousands of people in the process. Driven by their extreme anti-Russia animus that they have never lost, they were obviously willing to sacrifice an untold number of lives for the sake of Ukraine’s entry into NATO.
How can we be so certain that they knew that their threat to absorb Ukraine into NATO would induce Russia to invade Ukraine?
Because for the last 25 years, Russia has been telling them that that is precisely what Russia would do, in order to prevent U.S. nuclear missiles, bases, weaponry, and tanks from being installed on Russia’s border. We also know for certain that that is precisely what the Pentagon and the CIA would do if Russia, China, or North Korea threatened to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. There is no doubt that the Pentagon and the CIA would invade Cuba to prevent that from happening, just as Russia has invaded Ukraine.
For many years, some people have asked me about the relevance of the Kennedy assassination to our lives today here in America. In the concluding section of my new book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, I explain the relevance. The JFK assassination is a critically important part of our history, one that not only explains what happened to our nation and why it happened but also provides us with the way out of the deadly, destructive, and highly dangerous (i.e., nuclear) morass in which our nation has been plunged.
As I explain in my new book, at the end of World War II, American statists decreed that although Americans had just won the war, they could not rest. That’s because, the statists said, America now faced a foe that was supposedly more dangerous than Hitler and Nazi Germany. That foe was “godless communism” and the communist nations, especially the Soviet Union. U.S. officials steadfastly maintained that there was an international communist conspiracy based in Moscow that was hell-bent on taking over the United States and the rest of the world.
Thus began the extreme anti-Russia (and anti-Soviet and anti-China) animus that gripped the hearts and minds of the American people for the 45 years of the Cold War. At the same time, the animus generated ever-increasing budgets, power, and influence for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, all of which were brought into existence when the federal government was converted to a national-security state to fight its Cold War and wage its anti-communist crusade.
Woe to anyone who expressed any signs of sympathy, empathy, or friendship toward the Soviets, Red China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, or any other communist regime or, heaven forbid, with the communist philosophy or the Communist Party. He would be dealt with severely, including through character assassination or even state-sponsored assassination.
Look at this op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post by noted right-wing columnist Max Boot. It castigates anyone who is just perceived to express any favorable comment toward Russia or Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Anyone who does so is condemned as an anti-American Putin-lover or Russia-lover.
Now, take a look at this advertisement in the November 22, 1963, issue of the Dallas Morning News and this flier that was circulating in Dallas on that day. Note what right-wingers at that time were saying about Kennedy — that he was commie-lover and a Russia-lover, even a traitor to his country.
There is something important to note about that ad and about that flier: The sentiments in those two documents reflected perfectly the mindset of the U.S. military-intelligence establishment, which, not surprisingly, was extreme right-wing.
Why did the Pentagon, the CIA, and right-wingers hate Kennedy so much? Because Kennedy was committing the cardinal sin: He was befriending Russia, just like other leaders were who were targeted with assassination by the CIA, such as Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the Congo, Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba, and Jacobo Arbenz, the president of Guatemala (who escaped before they could assassinate him), and, later, Salvador Allende, the president of Chile, not to mention all the people who were assassinated as part of Operation Condor, the top-secret international right-wing kidnapping, torture, and assassination ring in which the CIA was a partner.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy saw that the Cold War was nothing but a great big racket that was enriching and empowering the national-security establishment while, at the same time, destroying our nation. He was bringing the America’s official anti-Russia animus to an end. He was bringing the Cold War racket to an end. They hated him and feared him because he was threatening to permanently upend their never-ending animus and racket.
In other words, in the long 77-year history of America’s anti-Russia animus, there has been one rupture in that campaign. That rupture was by President John F. Kennedy. The rupture lasted only a short period, but its significance is that it has pointed the way as to how we can extricate ourselves from the deadly, destructive, and highly dangerous (i.e., nuclear) morass into which our nation has been plunged.
That’s why the Kennedy assassination is relevant. That’s why we need to come to terms with it. We need to understand why he was assassinated. Once we understand the why, we can easily see the way to get our nation back on the right track — toward liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world.
You can buy my new book at Amazon: $9.95 for the Kindle version and $14.95 for the print version.
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Another five-star review of An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story:
“Hornberger takes a fascinating look at a mysterious secret buried within the Zapruder family for half a century. Abraham Zapruder took the famous 26 minute home movie of the Kennedy Assassination in Dallas. It contained the entire progress of the assassination, from the first turn of JFK’s limo onto Elm Street through the shootings and then the limo’s exit through the triple underpass headed for Parkland Hospital.
“It is often called the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of the JFK Assassination since everything is all there in plain sight, making everyone who sees it an eyewitness. So how can there be any Zapruder family secret about it? Yet in her recent book, Zapruder’s granddaughter, Alexandra, refers to a “50 year-long taboo within the Zapruder family against discussing the film.” Alexandra claims not to know what the taboo is all about. But, after the careful work done recently by a researcher for the Federal Government named Douglas Horne, Hornberger describes what he thinks is at the core of the mystery.
“On the 22nd of June 1964, as a witness to the assassination, Abraham Zapruder gave his deposition to the Warren Commission based upon his memory and the graphic information shown to him. He seemed uneasy and at times puzzled as he continued testifying. Early on he said ‘I started shooting–when the motorcade started coming in, I believe I started and wanted to get it coming in from Houston Street.’ But the Zapruder film in evidence before the Warren Commission did not show the motorcade ‘coming in’ from Houston Street.
“Hornberger points out that Zapruder had seen the film before he sold it to Life Magazine dozens of times. And yet as others who had seen the film with him at the time also observed there were changes between the original film and the film now in evidence. What were those changes? Who made them? And why and how was that even possible? Zapruder had to be aware of them. Hornberger carefully and thoroughly reviews the evidence and unravels Zapruder’s predicament in his testimony and the most likely story behind his family’s mysterious taboo.”—Thomas Lipscomb
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The Future of Freedom Foundation was founded in 1989 by FFF president Jacob Hornberger with the aim of establishing an educational foundation that would advance an uncompromising case for libertarianism in the context of both foreign and domestic policy. The mission of The Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government. Visit https://www.fff.org